In My Home This Week: A New Challenge

In my home this week:

It's cold and rainy as I write but meant to be sunny and bitter cold all the weekend.  I love winter for just this sort of weather.  I relish the coziness of my home.  I have warmth, light, food, good books to read and emergency heat and water should I need it.  In other words, I can be safe at home and assured of not having to go anywhere for any need whatever the weather might send my way!  It's a lovely feeling to be secure at home.

The first week of the New Year seems to have flown by.  Did it seem so to you, as well?  I did get busy and do some of those put off tasks, like planting the bulbs and hemming my jeans.  I managed to clean and organize a good section of my shed.  I sorted through a couple of boxes of books and I worked hard at writing posts, preparing foods and tending to the shopping.  I feel prosperous after this past week and I relate that to the Mother Hubbard challenge.  I look forward to my next Eating on a Tight Budget challenge next month. 

In the meantime, I'm ready to face other challenges in this first month of the new year.  Despite my planning ahead the last week of 2016 I have not quite pinned down the phrase that will be my theme for this year, nor have I fully formed all my thoughts for the new year.  I have a fuzzy head from too many pain relievers due to some very real mouth pain I've been having.  It does not seem to be a tooth or teeth but nerve pain in the gums.  It is episodic now rather than the continual pain it was so obviously improving.   However, regular doses of acetaminophen and ibuprofen does not promote clear thinking, sigh.  Bear with me and I'll properly introduce a fuller portion of my thoughts about 2017.

Eating on a Tight Budget: Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, Final Post

This will be the final post in the first part of this series.  I was pleased so many of you interacted and commented about this series.  I thank you all for participating. 

Just as a reminder: My challenge this week was to stretch $20 as far as I could to provide meals for TWO. In my scenario, I had no pantry and no freezer to pull foods from and I was in the current season with nothing growing nor able to forage for any foods.  In a perfect world, a neighbor or family member might well have helped out.  Heaven knows Mama was the food angel for our household many times, bringing in a bag of fruit or a grocery sack filled with meat she'd bought on sale to help carry us along.  But in this scenario, it was John and I and $20.

I took note of several things this week:

1. Were it  necessary, I COULD provide for us on $20.  The meals wouldn't be well balanced and nutritionally sound, but they would sustain us and feed us three meals a day. 

2. Second, I recalled why I like some of the recipes used during this challenge.  While I didn't go without proper seasonings, I do recall days when I didn't have the additions I made to the main dishes and that they filled us up.  They still do.  They are good, solid meals.

3. I want to explore a bit further into this realm of eating cheaply and build up a repertoire of recipes to turn to.  I am going to be looking for inexpensive ingredients that will add nutritive value, fiber and protein to replace meat.  I noted today as I made a big pot of vegetable soup that the barley I used has a protein value.  It's low but it does have protein value.  So this is an area to research.

4. Funnily enough, this scenario and my attempts to  get by on such a low amount, opened my eyes to the numerous spices and herbs I use only occasionally and made me aware of which I use often and often.  It also opened my eyes to how much food we have in this house!  It also made me aware of the many ways I might well stretch out the money I spent this week.  For instance, Debbie's comment about re-growing the green onions made me remember that I could attempt to regrow the celery as well.   That reminder prompted me to set romaine stems, celery root and cabbage end all in water.  Even if only a mere handful of leaves results from those attempts it would essentially be a handful more that I didn't have to pay for.  I plan to pot these items in soil, but not this evening.  It's quite cold and rainy outdoors.  It can wait through the weekend.

Frugal Friday: Use It Up...

Saturday:  John worked last night.  I wanted to make him a big breakfast due to that, rather than our usual light Saturday morning fare.  I had half a steak left from Christmas Day dinner and made hash browns, fried eggs and toast.  He seemed to really enjoy it and said he'd just skip dinner or at least wait until later to eat.

I took a frozen entrée of Turkey and Dressing with gravy from the freezer intending to have that for today's dinner.  Then Mama called saying she'd like to stop by here around noon.  She then texted to say she was bringing pizza.  I made a salad using the last of the tomatoes and lettuce and took that half carrot cake from the freezer to thaw.  It made a pretty good impromptu dinner and yes, John did eat, lol.  We just had a very light supper for tonight and did eat it a bit later than usual.

There were two slices of pizza left.  That will be part of our supper one night in the early part of this week.

Mama took home the rest of the carrot cake with her.  I was glad to send it with her.

Sunday:  We had eggs and toast for breakfast.  I did this because John planned to go one of the DIY stores following church and this meal holds me longer than bagels and cream cheese will.

John decided after church he'd rather run by Publix and then go home.  I took advantage of this decision to purchase bread for the week ahead and buy the few items I know I cannot get at Aldi: waxed paper, tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce.  John wanted microwaveable soup for his work lunch now that it's cold.  I walked up the soup aisle with him (he has carte blanch for choices like this as it is his work lunch).  I priced the bouillon pastes, which I prefer over bouillon cubes.  The first item I found was $6.99 a tub (about 1 cup total).  I was a bit put off by the price so I walked further up to price the bouillon cubes.  They too were $6.99 a bottle and not oversized containers of it either.  I glanced a little further down the aisle and noticed the Hispanic section of soup and bouillon items.  Just before that started I found  Publix store brand bouillon pastes for $4.99 a jar.  I bought beef, chicken and vegetable.  Those three items went onto my pantry shelf for now.

John decided he needed to purchase water to take to work.  We have such good water here but the water at his workplace is city water and just tastes off.  He was going to buy a couple of 1 liter bottles which are much less expensive than standard soda sized bottles.  Then he spied a real bargain of 3L bottles of water for $1 each.  He got one for himself.  I suggested we get four more and put those on the pantry shelf as well.  I invested $20 in my pantry yesterday (with an extra box of waxed paper) and was glad to be busy stocking it with things we most certainly can use for real emergencies.

After we returned home, I put some sweet potatoes into the microwave and reheated the turkey dressing we were going to have for yesterday's dinner.  It was very good.  I was reminded that I really should return to prepping a crock pot meal to cook while we were gone to church now the weather is cooler.

Eating On A Tight Budget: Mother Hubbard Challenge - Kathy's Menu

I was so pleased that Kathy decided to accept The Mother Hubbard Challenge!  I'll be sharing her shopping list and menu plan very shortly.  I'll follow up with a few replies to comments on this series of posts rather than wait until the end of the month.

Kathy:

Thanks for your challenge! It is much harder than I expected, and I'm glad that you aren't going to follow the menu exactly. Your health is more important, esp with diabetes, but I think it is good to think of what we might do.

Since there are 2 adults and 2 teens here, I wasn't able to come up with a menu plan for $20 for a week. I tried to do a dollar a day per person which would have been $28, but I was still having trouble with that too...so I think I could feed us for $37. I would have some of the same meals:

Breakfast
oatmeal with apple or banana
eggs/toast, french toast

Lunch
pb&j or pb&banana, chicken salad with apple and ranch dressing, hard boiled eggs

Supper
taco soup x2(prudent homemaker recipe)
spaghetti, lettuce salad, bread
baked chicken legs with rice and salad
chicken fried rice with carrots and onions
chicken soup
chicken and gravy over rice

Eating On A Tight Budget: Challenge #1 Mother Hubbard UPDATE

I knew when I set a budget of $20 it was going to be a stretch and a tough one at that.  I knew it would mean some deprivation and yet I was convinced I could feed two enough to keep us going a full week. 

I gave my proposed menu plan and shopping list here.  I thought I'd update on how it's going thus far and my findings regarding what I thought things cost, etc.

I'll start first with a revised grocery list.  Prices varied a lot from those I posted using my last receipts.  Not all of them rose post holiday either.  Some actually went down  I learned that some things were actually better priced at Publix and some were the same as Publix, which is a surprise to me as I thought Aldi surely was lower than Publix!  I checked prices online at Kroger and there's no need to even consider adding those prices to compare because they were pretty much the same.  So here's how my final shopping list looked:

Aldi
15 ounces peanut butter $1.49
Grape Jelly $1.49
salt $.49/container
green onions $.79
bread $.85
Grits $1.29
milk $1.65/gal
eggs $1.19
8 oz. cheddar cheese $1.49

Questions, Answers and Comments, Oh My!

Although this particular comment isn't from a December post, I must address Anonymous who seemed mighty upset that my blog now has ads.  YES it is the blog, not your device.

I am desperately trying to add a small amount of income to my household through various venues and since I spend a good many hours weekly working on this blog it would be nice to make a small bit of money from it.  I hope to get an Amazon affiliate link up as well if I can figure out how to activate the old one.  The revenue from ads is small but it does add up.  I don't ask anyone to click on anything they aren't interested in but if you do click on an ad for something that you'd like to know more about I'll receive a pittance for it and appreciate it greatly.

Now on to last month's comments and to answer any questions asked on those posts.

Gracious!  Lana commented on the first post of December (a Frugal Friday) that she was making Cranberry orange relish and Sweet Potato Casserole.  YUM!  I think holiday foods just sound good almost any time of the year, even when the year is new and the holidays only just past!

I didn't make Cranberry orange relish this year as I have some in the freezer from last year.  I also have a lot of cranberries in the freezer.  Those are on my USE IT UP list.  I have a recipe for a cranberry cake that sounds really good I thought I'd try, and another for an upside down cake that I know is good that I haven't made in years.  Since I have two or three pounds of cranberries, I am sure I'll be able to make a variety of things with them.  I also need to cook up those last little (oh so little!) sweet potatoes I bought at Aldi.  I think a sweet potato casserole for the freezer would be a god thing.

Eating On a Tight Budget: Challenge #1 Mother Hubbard

Over the holidays I spent more than the usual amount of time on Pinterest.  I find it a great resource for a brain jog.  On this particular evening, I'd been looking for inexpensive meals one might make.  I stumbled upon this list on Gracefullittlehoneybee.com which listed 35 foods to purchase when you're broke.  I think the list a very good one and a frugal one but I couldn't help but think back to my Food for Thought post.  What if I had no pantry, no freezer filled with food, and a very limited budget?  How well could I manage?

I went online and read hundreds of posts about various food budget amounts ($27, $37, $50, $75) for a week's worth of groceries.  I read posts to see what was purchased, how it was meted out, what menus were used, etc. 

Well, here's my take away: a great many of those posting didn't adhere to a hard and fast  "this is all we have and no more" budget.  They freely drew from a pantry, cabinet, fridge and just supplemented with items that fit their assumed budget for that week.  Some had gardens, and a few suggested foraging which is a good way to stretch a thin budget as I well know.  My current foraging would be limited to the wild green onions that grow here and yes, you can use them.  John isn't keen but I should think the green tops would be rather nice.